Thursday, November 08, 2007

Indian Classical music - Comparative concert

I was privileged to attend a music concert by Rama Sundar , a trained singer in Hindustani and Carnatic classical music, which focussed on the comparative styles, raagas and talas of both the forms of music.

The format of the concert was to sing a short "Bandish" in Hindustani Classical and follow it up with a Kriti in the equivalent carnatic raaga with Lecture demonstration of the subtle differences in the music systems and taala formats. Here is a list of Raagas that were sung :

It was an extremely enjoyable experience to hear the unalloyed sweetness of both the music systems and there was no debate in the end as to which system ( Hindustani or Carnatic) was the winner. Music was the winner !

I was away on a holiday and true to isolation it was to Andamans.. and hence the delayed response.

The Hindustani / Carnatic raaga comparisons was an avid topic which used to chase in my younger days. AIR used to have a programme of 10 minutes 730-740 am every day and I never used to miss them. There are many such comparable raagas - Malkauns/Hindolam, Bhoopali/Mohanam, Bhairavi/Maya malava goula? and so on. Many raagas as Desh continued in Carnatic too - Maand, jaunpuri, Hamir Kalyani, Brindavani Sarang etc.

A lovely piece for someone to have so many raagas at one stage show, as Hindustani Kutcheris typically take up a few raagas in 3 hours duet, unlike our Carnatic where you can hear atleast 8-10 raagas.